


Aftermath

by Schaden_freude



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: All the cuddles, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Sibling Bonding, Spoilers - Journal 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:01:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23207395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schaden_freude/pseuds/Schaden_freude
Summary: Some random character ramblings about what happened after Bill's possession of Dipper in the Sock Opera episode. And that's about it.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 39





	Aftermath

"I'm sorry, Dipper. I spent all week obsessing over some dumb guy. But the dumb guy I should've cared about was you. Mystery twins?"

"Mystery twins." 

"Ow ow! What did Bill do to my hand?"

"Wha--are you okay?!" 

Mabel's eyes widened as Dipper clutched at his stomach, doubling over in pain. "Ugh, everything hurts!" 

"Dipper!" Mabel wrapped her arms around her brother to keep him from falling. He attempted to speak again, but only coughed up blood. Seeing the bright red stain on her sweater, Mabel knew Dipper needed more help than she could give alone. 

Just then there was a loud rustling noise as Mabel's friend Grenda pulled herself out of what used to be the set of Mabel's puppet opera. "Hey, Mabel! That opera was fantastic! But, uh, I think your brother called me a monster." 

"No time for that now!" Mabel yelped. "Dipper's hurt! We gotta get him to the hospital!!" 

By this time Dipper had stopped moving, a dead weight on the floor. Mabel tried hard to lift him, to carry him out, but she wasn't strong enough. But then Dipper was lifted out of her arms and clear off the floor. Dear old Grenda lifted Dipper's body over her head with a determined expression on her face. 

"Let's go," she said. 

A few hours later Mabel was sitting beside Dipper's bed in Gravity Falls's Northwest Hospital. He was asleep, with several tubes feeding into his thin and lacerated arms. He had been asleep now for two days, the result of having stayed up for so long trying to guess the password to the laptop. 

That stupid laptop, thought Mabel angrily. With it's stupid secrets and this stupid town and all of it stupidly hurting my brother!

Of course, she loved Gravity Falls, and she loved solving mysteries with him. But this had gone too far. True, the insane monsters of this town had nearly killed them before. But this...this felt oddly personal. You couldn't take back this kind of pain. 

Last night Soos had found the remains of the laptop in the attic where Dipper had spent the last night. It was heavily damaged, as though someone had viciously stomped on it repeatedly. Probably Bill, after he had taken Dipper's body. 

Whatever information had been on the laptop was gone forever, and all of Dipper's research, it seemed, was back to square one. He had one clue and now it was gone. How was he going to find the Author now? 

Sadly, Mabel stood up and ran her fingers through Dipper's hair. He turned, but did not wake up. Mabel distracted herself by putting small hair clips into Dipper's hair. It was something they used to do when they were very little, to cheer each other up. Both twins had thick brown hair, and they enjoyed brushing and putting hair clips in each others' hair. 

Good old sweet Dipper. She really was so lucky to have a brother like him. Even though he was obsessed with cracking the laptop password, he still found time to help her make the puppets and have a good time with her. He had sacrificed so much for her. The least she could do was be with him now, when he really needed it. 

When Mabel had arrived at the hospital with Dipper two nights ago, she had been afraid that she would have to tell the doctors what happened to Dipper. What was she supposed to tell them? A demon made of pure energy had possessed him? Who would believe that? 

But of course, this was Gravity Falls, where nothing was impossible and weird was normal. The doctors accepted him without much questioning. They said Dipper had 'internal bleeding' and 'blunt force trauma' and other phrases that Mabel didn't quite understand, but they sounded scary. 

After that it was all a blur with Dipper being rushed to an x-ray room, doctors talking and sighing, Grunkle Stan arguing with them. Later, when Dipper was all hooked up and left alone, Mabel heard Stan on the phone, talking with their parents. 

"No, no, he'll be alright, it was just an accident, you know how the kids roughhouse," Stan had said. "And don't worry about the hospital bills. I...I'll cover them."

It must have physically hurt Stan to actually pay for something, but it was touching and showed how much he was willing to put up with the kids, instead of shaking their parents down for money. Like that one time when he--

"Nnngh..." A low groan jerked Mabel out of her thoughts. She looked down and saw Dipper, tossing and turning in the hospital bed. His eyes were shut tight, and he was mumbling to himself, yet still asleep. 

"She...no..." Dipper's mumbling was incoherent, but by his expression Mabel could see whatever he was seeing could not be good. 

"Stop, stop," Dipper moaned, tossing his head violently in the nightmare. Oh no. 

Suddenly he was screaming. "NO! DON'T HURT HER--!"

"Dipper!" Instinctively Mabel hugged his head, pulling him close to her chest. "Dipper, wake up!" 

"H-Huh...?" Dipper's eyes slowly opened. He looked up, dazed and half-asleep. "Mabel...?" 

"I'm here, bro-bro," said Mabel kindly. "I'm here for you." 

"I'm so tired," Dipper mumbled, his eyes closing again. 

"I know." Mabel laid his head gently on the pillow. "Sleep, and have good dreams, okay? Only good dreams." 

"Mm hm..." And with that Dipper was asleep again. She continued petting his hair. The texture of it soothed her, and she hoped it calmed him too. 

Just as Dipper again settled into a steady, even breathing, there was a soft knock on the door and a grizzled, gray head peeked in. 

"Hey, Mabel," Grunkle Stan tried to keep his deep, growly voice low. "How's he doin'?" 

"He's having nightmares," Mabel sighed, glancing at Dipper. 

"Yeah, well, the doctors said that kinda thing goes with trauma," Stan was trying to be helpful, but even he felt depressed by that information. "A-Anyway, they said he'll be okay. Be outta here in a week." 

He petted Mabel's hair, the only sign of affection he really ever showed the kids. Stan wasn't a touchy feely sort of guy. He watched Dipper's sleeping, peaceful form. 

Stan wasn't cut out for this supernatural stuff. That was always Ford's thing. Ford was the smart one. Ford would know what to do, how to help these kids. Hell, he probably would have stopped all this from happening in the first place. 

God, Sixer, I wish you were here...

"Grunkle Stan?" Mabel tugged at his elbow.

"Hm? What is it, sweetie?" 

"I need to show you something." 

Stan followed his niece out of the hospital room. She looked around in case anyone was listening, but the hallway was deserted. Carefully, she pulled a piece of paper from her sweater. It was a handwritten note, in a jagged, spidery sort of handwriting. Stan read it carefully, his eyes widening with each sentence. 

NOTE TO SELF: Possessing people is hilarious! To think of all the sensations I've been missing out on--burning, stabbing, drowning. It's like a buffet tray of fun! Once I destroy that journal, I'll enjoy giving this body its grand finale--by throwing it off the water tower! Best of all, people will just think Pinetree lost his mind, and his mental form will wander in the mindscape forever. Want to join him, Shooting Star? 

"I found it on the floor of the car," Mabel said miserably. "That demon must have left it there when he had Dipper's body. He was going to kill him, Grunkle Stan. And if he had gotten away with it, Dipper would have--" 

"Mabel, don't beat yourself up," said Stan sternly. "This isn't your fault. It's not--oh, c'mere." 

He knelt on his knees and hugged her tight, let her cry into his shoulder. It felt awkward, having a kid cry on him like this. Most kids ran away from him. But then, Mabel and Dipper weren't exactly normal kids. Not by a long shot. He patted her back, and, although Stan had never been religious, he thanked God for letting these kids into his life. For giving him a family. 

"S-Should I show the note to Dipper...when he wakes up?" Mabel asked, wiping her nose. 

"Nah, the boy's had enough trauma," Stan frowned. "And I don't want you carrying that note around either. It's evil. In fact, give it to me. I'll destroy it." 

"But Grunkle Stan," Mabel whimpered. "What if that triangle demon is still out there?" 

"Kid, that demon messed with my niece and nephew," Stan winked at her. "And the only monster allowed to terrorize my family is me." 

Mabel giggled through her tears. "I love you, Grunkle Stan!" 

"I love you too." 

True to their word, the doctors released Dipper from the hospital. They warned him to get enough sleep and to take medicine that would help with the bleeding. For now, at least, things seemed to go back to normal. Within a week or so Dipper was back to his old tricks, playing with Mabel, hanging out with Soos and Wendy. He got over the loss of the laptop surprisingly quickly and returned to the search for the Author with renewed vigor. All in all, he seemed confident and healthy. 

But at night, in the quiet moments when Mabel lay in bed staring at the ceiling, she heard Dipper mumbling in his sleep again. There were no longer screaming night terrors, not like the ones he had at the hospital. And yet Mabel listened to him and wondered what he was seeing. She wished him only good dreams. 

And deep down below the twins' attic, Stanley Pines was hard at work in the lab. With the handwritten note on the table beside him, he pored over Stanford's journals long into the night. Most of it was scientific jargon and Stan didn't understand a lot of it. It was always hard to tell what Ford was thinking when they were kids, and now, as Stan struggled with the vocabulary, he cursed his brother again for being so difficult even when he was god-knows-where. 

And yet, interwoven through the journals was a story about a man and his 'muse'. Ford wrote an awful lot about this mysterious muse, and praised him to the skies. The muse even wrote in the journal himself, or so Ford claimed. Now Stan could prove it. He compared the handwritten note with the muse's writing in the journal. He was no expert, and they weren't exactly identical, but there was a resemblance. Wasn't there?

If the demon that possessed Dipper was the same one that tormented Ford....Stan leaned back in his chair and cursed Ford for the millionth time. Since Dipper inherited the journal, of course he would inherit the problems that came with it. Damn this supernatural stuff! Damn Ford for getting mixed up in it, for dragging Stan and the rest of the Pines family down with him. Any dreams that Stan might have had of retiring to Florida had long since been shattered. 

Though he cursed Ford to high heaven, he was determined to get him back. And he would protect his family. 

Or lose everything trying.


End file.
